To Dreams
by AMarguerite
Summary: My attempt at a serious Les Mis fic, in which Musichetta and Cosette come to terms with the losses of loved ones.


A/N:  My attempt at a serious fic.  Be kind and review so I know whether to stick to insane parodies instead of writing stuff like this.  Enjoy!  

Disclaimer:  I am not Victor Hugo.  He is quite dead.  As I am not dead, I am, therefore, not Monsieur Hugo.  So, sadly, I do not own _Les Miserables or any of its characters.  _

            It was cold in the cemetery, but Musichetta was beyond caring.  She knelt in front of the two graves, nearly failing to comprehend.  She didn't want to understand.    

"Why did you have to go and leave me?" she admonished attempting to glare at the tombstones.  She furiously yanked a handkerchief out of her pocket and dashed the tears away from her eyes.  "It's your fault Joly.  It's your fault you had to go and get killed."  She moved her head slightly to see L'Aigle's grave as well.  "And you, Bossuet, you went and got yourself as dead as a, a…."  Musichetta trailed off.  

"Never thought of me, did you two?  Never thought of anything but your glorious revolution before you went off to that bloody barricade."  Musichetta had the strong urge to kick something but she felt horrible at the thought of kicking the tombstones of her late lovers.  She settled for falling to the ground and throwing her handkerchief at a nearby tree.  She glared bitterly at the sparse brown mounds in front of the headstones and vaguely wished she had brought flowers.

"You had to go and die, Joly.  Not even of malaria, or smallpox, or any of the thousands of diseases you claimed to have every day.  And you, Bossuet, you dying too!  Don't think I didn't see how bloodstained your jacket was!"  Musichetta began wishing she hadn't thrown her handkerchief so far away.  Tears were making her vision blurry. 

"You… stupid, stupid boys, to throw your lives away like that."  She paused and discreetly wiped her eyes with the edge of her sleeve.  "Yes, I know what you two would say to me, your grand cause, _liberté, égalité, fraternité, and all your ideas about changing the world.  What's happened now?"  Musichetta drew her knees to her chest and pillowed her head on her arms.  "Did you ever think of anyone else?" _

There was a rustling sound behind her and a twig snapped.  

Musichetta stood up and whirled around.  How dare anyone interrupt her now?!  

A girl, bourgeois, no doubt, with curled brown hair and startling blue eyes, was attempting to make her way through the cemetery.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the girl whispered.  "I didn't mean to disturb you."

Musichetta glanced at the tombstones.  "No harm done.  It's not like they care."  

The girl's eyes widened slightly.  "Oh.  Well, excuse me, please."  Her voice hovered on the edge of tears. 

Musichetta felt a pang of remorse for the girl.  Who did she lose?  Did someone leave her alone without any thought for her?  "Where are you going?  Did your lover die at the barricade too?  Father more like.  Or did you have a brother?"  Musichetta glanced back at the tombstones.  "This is where are the rebels are buried."  She glared at Joly's headstone.  "Yes, rebels… dead, rebellious students.  That's what they were."

"My father is buried over that way," the girl explained quietly.  "He was at the barricades, but he escaped.  But he died after… when…."  The girl pressed the palm of her hand to one of her eyes.  "Sorry."  Her voice quivered with sorrow and un-shed tears.

"What's your name?"  

"Cosette.  Cosette… Fauchelevent, no…. Valjean Pontmercy.  And yours?"

Musichetta paused a moment.  The name 'Pontmercy' seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite place it.  "Musichetta.  I would've liked my last name to be Joly, but… things happen."  She glared at the grave again.  "Such as death."  Her voice was bitter and biting, she knew.  If her boys had been alive, Joly would've winced and her dear Eagle of Words would've flown from the room.  "This is his grave.  Stupid boy.  Going off and getting himself killed like that."

Cosette gently approached Musichetta, gracefully hopping, if such words could be used, over the other branches in her way.  "Monsieur Joly was…?"  

"Mmmm?  I was his mistress."  She turned to look at the graves.  "And that's L'Aigle, over there.  He roomed with us sometimes.  Had the worst luck."  Musichetta gently caressed Joly's headstone, tears threatening to overwhelm her.

"Oh."  Cosette was quiet.  

"So… you said your father was at the barricade?"  Musichetta was not eager to continue talking about Joly and L'Aigle.  It was still painful to think of them.

"Was," Cosette said absently, focusing on a sparrow in the branches of the tree where Musichetta had thrown her handkerchief.  "He escaped, but he died just… a few days ago."  Cosette gave a wry smile.  "It feels like weeks."

"And the weeks feel like years," Musichetta added.  

Cosette nodded.  "And all you can do is feel tormented that you didn't spend enough time with them…."She pressed her palm into her eye again.  "Sorry."

"Nothing to apologize for.  God knows I've cried over Joly enough." Musichetta swallowed and blinked.  "I loved him, the foolish hypochondriac.  And then he died."

"I know the feeling... of despairing you'll never see that special person ever again." 

"Really?  Ever been in love?"  Musichetta glanced at Cosette, who was smiling very slightly.

"Yes.  My father didn't want me to see Marius, and I was angry with him, but… he relented.  He saved my husband from the barricades and he let us marry.  But he refused to see me after a while, and then he… he just… died."  Cosette pulled a lacy white handkerchief out her pocket and wiped her eyes. 

"Marius Pontmercy?" Musichetta asked suddenly.  "I remember him.  Joly knew him from that poetical group that got them all killed.  Dreamy fellow, wasn't he?  Dark hair, wide eyes?"

Cosette smiled brilliantly.  "Yes, that's my husband."  She said the word 'husband' caressingly; as if the word was the most beautiful one she'd ever heard.

_Must be newlyweds_, Musichetta thought.  "Ah.  Didn't know he was alive.  The rest of them are all dead." She wandered past Joly and L'Aigle's tombstones, after brushing a bit of imaginary dirt off Laigle's.  "There's Courfeyrac.  Witty and flirtatious.  Knew almost every grisette in Paris."

"Marius said Courfeyrac was his roommate," Cosette added quietly.  "Bit of a womanizer, wasn't he?  I wonder how many of them visited his grave."  She blushed and looked down.  "I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have said that.  It was rude and uncalled for."

"It's not like he can hear you," Musichetta despaired rather resentfully.  "Stupid boy.  He would've made a fine lawyer.  He was always friendly."  She tapped the top of the tombstone and walked on.  "Jehan.  Such a sweet one... and the youngest one in the group save for your Marius.  He was executed by the National Guard."

"Was he a poet?" Cosette clarified as she read the poem on Jean Prouvaire's gravestone.   

Musichetta sighed.  "Yes, he was a poet.  He wrote me a lovely poem once.  He grew flowers too."  She lightly rested her hand on the headstone and glanced at the poem on it.  "He wrote that poem, I think.  Stupid, silly boy, dying like that when there was so much left for him to live for."

She walked over to the next grave.  "Feuilly was buried here.  He's a… was a fan maker.  He called himself 'an orphan who adopted the people'.  Working class man, but good natured."

"Was he the one who liked Poland?" Cosette inquired faintly.  "Marius has told me of his friends before…."

"Mm-hmm.  Ranted about Poland quite frequently.  Joly bought me a beautiful fan once... that Feuilly had made, when it was my birthday.  He seemed to be the most practical of 'em all, but he died anyway."  Musichetta ran her finger over the stone and walked on.  "And now there's Combeferre.  He was the philosopher of the group.  Quite an intellectual too.  To my knowledge, he could draw a silkworm moth from memory.  Dear Laigle remembered the strangest things to tell me sometimes."  She patted the top of the stone.  "See that there, underneath his name?  It says 'Revolution, but Civilization'.  Ridiculous ideals, but he was a generally kind person.  Bought me dinner once, when I was waiting for Joly." 

Musichetta moved on, Cosette following.  "Now… there's Grantaire."

"The cynic and drunkard?" Cosette queried before she could stop herself.   "I'm sure he must've had some good qualities, even if he didn't believe in the revolution."  She blushed at the thought of having profaned the dead.        

"He didn't.  Laigle put it into words best, I think. 'Believes in one thing only.  Enjolras.'"  She squinted at Grantaire's tombstone.  "Hunh.  His first name's François.  Imagine that."

"What do you mean by believes- believed - in Enjolras?"  Cosette looked at the grave, which was already unkempt, and the tombstone, which was already grimy.  

"Loved him as I loved Joly, the poor soul.  Enjolras hated him.  So he hid behind his absinthe.  Can't stand that vile stuff myself.  Joly had it once and was dead drunk after just a few sips.  Grantaire… or François, rather, seemed to think he was very popular with the grisettes, but he was an ugly fellow.  Stupid boy.  He might've lived.  One of the other survivors said that François had been dead drunk when he left the barricade.  Guess he's still…one of those things." She rubbed the dirt off the inscription on the front.

She straightened and grimaced.  "And then there's their golden fearless leader.  A pretty one… looked like a Greek god, but all the same, thoroughly heartless.  Treated Grantaire like scum.  But cared about his precious republic.  Not about the lives of his followers or the ladies they left behind.  Just about his shining utopia and Robespierre.  Whoever he was."  

Musichetta stood and stared at the tombstone with unadulterated hatred and disgust.  "How do you feel about revolution now, Enjolras?  They're all dead but Pontmercy.  And nothing changed.  Thank you for killing my Joly."

Cosette looked unhappy, but sympathetic.  "They knew what they were doing, Musichetta.  I know how miserable I'd be if Marius died, but it wasn't Enjolras fault Joly's dead."

"That sexist, horrible," and here followed a string of words that should not be repeated in polite company or any company at all, for that matter, "was their leader.  He led them to death."  She took a deep breath.  "Not that I'm still bitter." She managed a rueful smile and had the urge to spit on Enjolras's gravestone.  

Cosette smiled at her consolingly.  "It's hard to understand why someone has left you.  But you have to ask… would he want you to be like this?"  The last sentence seemed to be directed as much to herself as Musichetta.  

_She's got a point there_, Musichetta thought.  But Musichetta didn't give up anger easily.  She felt the overwhelming urge to kick or otherwise maim Enjolras's tombstone, but refrained by glaring malevolently at it and pacing. 

Cosette glanced over towards an abandoned corner of the cemetery by the wall, close to where the revolutionaries were buried.  "He'd rather have you be happy and remember him in the things he loved then sorrow over him continually," she whispered, fiddling with her handkerchief nervously, in an almost birdlike manner.  "He wouldn't want that.  Love…" she swallowed and turned to look at another tombstone.  Her eyes widened and she quickly knelt and cleaned off the inscription in one fluid motion.  "Love… is patient.  Love is kind.  Love is forgiving.  It is never boastful…."

"Love is forgiving," Musichetta repeated softly.  "Forgiving…."  

"I remember that verse.  Papa taught me to recite it when I was young and in the convent." Cosette smiled wistfully.  "Dear Papa…."

Musichetta stared at Enjolras's tombstone.  "But still, death for the sake of a dream…."

"Is life anything but a dream?" Cosette asked softly.  "Love is a dream, yet many have died for it." Her blue eyes flickered over to the old wall of the cemetery where the tree was.  "Why not die for a dream?"  

Musichetta felt the anger she had possessed fading replaced with a sort of weary sorrow.  "Because those who you left behind won't understand," Musichetta replied softly.  "Because their deaths meant nothing at all."

Cosette laid a gloved hand on Musichetta's shoulder.  "Their deaths made a difference.  When dying for a dream…" Cosette paused to think.  "When dying for a dream, the people who died make other people aware of it... of their dreams.  You didn't know that they had felt so passionately about something until they've died for it, and then you realize…"  Cosette's voice became watery.  "How much it meant to them.  How much you meant to them…"  Cosette removed her hand and pressed her palms to her eyes.  

Musichetta turned and smiled half-heartedly at Cosette.  "Death has a funny way of putting things in perspective."       

Cosette attempted to wipe her eyes on her handkerchief before remembering she had just used it to wipe off a grave.  She laughed, sadly, and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.  

Musichetta swallowed and blinked rapidly.  "No use in being angry at the dead.  Doesn't matter to them and they can't do anything about it, the stupid boys."  

Cosette smiled bleakly.  "That's the spirit."

Musichetta snorted softly.  "Thanks."

The two stood and stared at the row of graves a moment.  Then Cosette glanced over at the crumbling wall and the tall grasses at the end of the cemetery.  

"I've got to go.  I need to see someone."  Cosette held out her hand.  Musichetta, being a creature of emotions, hugged Cosette tightly.  Cosette seemed rather startled, but hugged Musichetta back.  

"_Merci," Musichetta thanked her.  "Thank you Madame Pontmercy."_

"And _merci to you to, Madame Joly," Cosette murmured.  "__Au revoir."  Cosette set off smiling.  She seemed to float over the grounds to the wall.  _

Musichetta stayed in front of Enjolras's grave a moment, staring at the marble tombstone.  Then she slowly, cautiously, reached out a hand and traced the inscription.  

"To dreams," she whispered.  And with a final glance at Joly and L'Aigle's gravestones, she swept out of the cemetery.     


End file.
